I admit I'm still using a rather old distro at home, Mandrake Official 10.0, but it came with full MP3 support (both as audio files and as the audio format in a video file).
Someone on another forum lambasted my suggestion that the XviD video codec would play on any Linux machine by saying that most distros didn't come with MP3 support, making a lot of XviD videos play in Linux with no sound.
I went looking and of course he's right, Debian and Ubuntu don't have it for obvious licensing reasons, Redhat pulled support for MP3 back in version 8.0 and never put it back. Mandriva still includes support for MP3s.
What exactly is the official policy on MP3s? Is there an unwritten policy thats sort of <nudge, nudge, wink, wink> regarding allowing free software MP3 decoders/encoders?
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On Saturday 12 November 2005 23:27, Leo Mauler wrote:
Someone on another forum lambasted my suggestion that the XviD video codec would play on any Linux machine by saying that most distros didn't come with MP3 support, making a lot of XviD videos play in Linux with no sound.
XviD is not MP3. Generally, XviD is paired up with Vorbis, so it's not even a safe assumption that an XviD encoded video would use MP3... so the whole debate is irrelevant to your suggestion. Of course, I wouldn't suggest XviD-- ffmpeg's MP4 encoder is better.
I went looking and of course he's right, Debian and Ubuntu don't have it for obvious licensing reasons, Redhat pulled support for MP3 back in version 8.0 and never put it back. Mandriva still includes support for MP3s.
I think the lack of MP3 support is more of a lecture on using Vorbis instead of MP3 than anything else.
What exactly is the official policy on MP3s? Is there an unwritten policy thats sort of <nudge, nudge, wink, wink> regarding allowing free software MP3 decoders/encoders?
I think there's a written licensing policy that MP3 is licensed for any non-commercial use.
--- Luke-Jr [email protected] wrote:
On Saturday 12 November 2005 23:27, Leo Mauler wrote:
Someone on another forum lambasted my suggestion that the XviD video codec would play on any Linux machine by saying that most distros didn't come with MP3 support, making a lot of XviD videos play in Linux with no sound.
XviD is not MP3.
I know this, the question was about playing the MP3 audio format found in AVI files.
Generally, XviD is paired up with Vorbis, so it's not even a safe assumption that an XviD encoded video would use MP3...
Well, most of the XviD video files I've found use MP3 instead of OGG, so I've had the exact opposite experience.
What exactly is the official policy on MP3s? Is there an unwritten policy thats sort of <nudge, nudge, wink, wink> regarding allowing free software MP3 decoders/encoders?
I think there's a written licensing policy that MP3 is licensed for any non-commercial use.
Well, what I've been able to find says otherwise. Sure, the company said in public that they don't mind if free software people make completely free software to decode MPEG, but the official site makes no exception for anyone on the subject of royalties.
http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html
The problem is that while the folks who own the patents on MPEG (including MP3) did say once that they don't mind if people make free software MPEG decoders, they said this in 2002. I was wondering if anyone else had heard anything since 2002.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/08/30/mp3_codecs_no_longer_free/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/08/31/mp3_royalty_scare_over_not/
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Leo Mauler wrote:
What exactly is the official policy on MP3s? Is there an unwritten policy thats sort of <nudge, nudge, wink, wink> regarding allowing free software MP3 decoders/encoders?
Back around 2002, the owners of the MP3 patent started charging a $.75 fee for all MP3 decoders. Most free distro's pulled MP3 support rather than pay the fee. Probably a paid for box set of Suse etc.. would include MP3 support.
http://slashdot.org/yro/02/08/27/1626241.shtml
thanks chad
On Monday 14 November 2005 02:13 pm, Chad Phillips wrote:
Back around 2002, the owners of the MP3 patent started charging a $.75 fee for all MP3 decoders. Most free distro's pulled MP3 support rather than pay the fee. Probably a paid for box set of Suse etc.. would include MP3 support.
Interesting discussion also here:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2000/06/msg01213.html
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Luke-Jr